Bristolmetrics: Marcus Lattimore's Injury Tests SportsCenter's Policy On Showing Really Gross Things

This a regular feature breaking down, minute-by-minute, the content that appears on ESPN's 11 p.m. edition of SportsCenter throughout the week.

Note: Hurricane Sandy knocked out our television capturing software for Monday-Wednesday of last week, so totals are for four days. Apologies.

Total time: 206.5 minutes Time (minus commercials):158

TIME DEVOTED TO INDIVIDUAL SPORTS NFL: 49.5 minutes (31.3%) (last week: 30.6%) College football: 45.25 (28.6%) (last week: 14.2%) SportsCenter staples*: 18.25 (11.6%) (last week: 10.8%) NBA: 18 (11.4%) (last week: 6%) MLB: 17 (10.8%) (last week: 34.5%) NASCAR: 4 (2.5%) (last week: 0.5%) College basketball: 3.25 (2.1%) (last week: 0%) Other sports: 2.75 (1.7%) (last week: 2.8%) NHL: 0 (0%) (last week: 0.4%) Golf: 0 (0%) (last week: 0.4%)

*-Includes things like the "Top 10," "Encore," "What 2 Watch 4," etc.

MOST-COVERED TEAMS BY SPORT San Francisco Giants (MLB): 17 (10.8%) San Diego Chargers (NFL): 13.75 (8.7%) Notre Dame Fighting Irish (college football): 8.25 (5.2%) Los Angeles Lakers (NBA): 5 (3.2%) Kentucky Wildcats (college basketball): 2.5 (1.6%)

MOST-MENTIONED SPORTS FIGURES Rather than break down the amount of time a specific athlete or figure was covered, we counted how frequently names were mentioned in the transcripts from the week. The 15 most-mentioned sports people for Oct. 26-Nov. 1.

Philip Rivers: 26 Peyton Manning: 23 Tony Romo: 20 Collin Klein: 17 Marcus Lattimore: 12 Drew Brees: 11 Kobe Bryant: 10 James Harden: 9 Ryan Vogelsong: 9 Dwyane Wade: 8 Hurricane Sandy: 8 Jeremy Lin: 7 LeBron James: 7 Everett Golson: 6 Manti Te'o: 6

CUMULATIVE STATISTICS: Jan. 7-Nov. 1 Total time: 19,056 minutes Time (minus commercials): 14,350

MLB: 2,855.5 (19.9%) NFL: 2,833.25 (19.7%) NBA: 2,737.75 minutes (19.1%) SportsCenter staples: 1,946 (13.6%) Other: 1,695.25 (11.8%) College basketball: 1063.5 (7.4%) College football: 762.75 (5.3%) NHL: 456.75 (3.2%)

Marcus Lattimore's shredded knee posed a problem: Last Saturday, the South Carolina running back suffered one of the more gruesome leg injuries this side of Joe Theismann. In-game, ESPN showed the replay from multiple angles, and in slow motion. That night's SportsCenter provided a conundrum: show the injury, or not? Their solution was exactly right. They ran the play at game-speed, followed by a close-up of Lattimore that didn't show his leg, then a shot of him being carted off the field. The stomach-churning video was available online for anyone who wanted to see it, and including it on SportsCenter wouldn't have added anything to the package. Good stuff.